General elections will be held in Brazil on 4 October 2026 to elect the president, vice president, members of the National Congress, the governors, vice governors, and legislative assemblies of all federative units, and the district council of Fernando de Noronha. If no candidate for president—or for governor in some states—received more than half of the valid votes in the first round, a runoff election for these offices will be held on 31 October.
Incumbent left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party is eligible for a fourth term. He said that he will not seek re-election.
Having run for president in 1989, 1994, 1998, Lula was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. He was then succeeded by his Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff, who was elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Lula attempted to run for the presidency for a third-non consecutive term in 2018, but his candidacy was denied by the Superior Electoral Court due to his previous conviction on corruption charges in 2017. A series of court rulings led to his release from prison in 2019, followed by the annulment of his conviction and restoration of his political rights by 2021. For his vice presidential candidate in the 2022 election, Lula selected Geraldo Alckmin, who had been a presidential candidate of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in 2006 (facing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round) and 2018 but changed his affiliation to the Brazilian Socialist Party in 2022.
Lula won the 2022 election by the closest margin in Brazilian history, defeating incumbent right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro by 1.9% (or 2,139,645 votes). Lula, re-elected in 2022, became the first person to secure a third presidential term, receiving the highest number of votes in a Brazilian election. At the same time, Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, became the first incumbent president to lose a bid for a second term since a 1997 constitutional amendment allowing consecutive re-election. In response to his loss, some Bolsonaro supporters demanded a military coup to prevent Lula's inauguration, but failed to gather sufficient support. Before Lula's inauguration, Bolsonaro left the country for the United States and was later barred from running for a second term before 2030.
Background
From 1994 to 2014, presidential elections in Brazil were dominated by candidates of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party and the left-wing Workers' Party. After unsuccessful attempts in the 1989, 1994, and 1998 presidential elections, Workers' Party candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected in the 2002 and 2006 presidential elections. His successor from the same party, Dilma Rousseff, was elected in the 2010 and 2014 presidential elections. The controversial 2016 impeachment of Rousseff removed her from office due to administrative misconduct, and she was succeeded by her vice president, Michel Temer of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement. In 2017, Operation Car Wash controversially resulted in Lula being convicted on charges of corruption by judge Sergio Moro and arrested, which prevented his intended candidacy in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, despite his substantial lead in the polls. He was replaced as his party's presidential candidate by former mayor of São Paulo, Fernando Haddad, who lost to far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party.
In 2019, Bolsonaro left the Social Liberal Party. This was followed by the dismissal or resignation of many members of the Bolsonaro administration, including Moro, whom he had appointed as Minister of Justice and Public Safety. Bolsonaro then attempted to create another party, the Alliance for Brazil, but he was unsuccessful. In 2021, Bolsonaro joined the Liberal Party and selected Walter Braga Netto of his party as the vice presidential candidate instead of Hamilton Mourão, the incumbent vice president. A series of rulings by the Supreme Federal Court questioning the legality of Lula's trial and the impartiality of then judge Moro led to Lula's release from prison in 2019, followed by the annulment of Moro's cases against Lula and the restoration of Lula's political rights by 2021. Lula launched his candidacy for president in 2022, selecting as his vice presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin, who had been a presidential candidate of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in 2006 and 2018 but changed his affiliation to the left-wing Brazilian Socialist Party in 2022. The three parties supporting Bolsonaro in 2022 (Liberal Party, Progressistas, and Republicans) had supported Alckmin in 2018 and Rousseff in 2014. After Bolsonaro's departure from the Social Liberal Party, the party merged with the Democrats to form the Brazil Union in 2022.